Smoke (21 page)

Mindy knew what he meant, but she also knew it wasn’t really true. She and Peter were truthful with each other, yes. They shared the big things, the important things. But everything that had been in her head for the last twenty years? No. Peter only saw the tip of that iceberg, and that’s the way it was going to stay. That’s the way it had to stay.

“I didn’t know what to do,” Mindy said.

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“You’ve been so preoccupied with work, and I didn’t know if there was anything really happening and—”

“No. Stop. You found out our son was being bullied, that he might be getting set up for causing this fire, that he might actually be involved in it, and you don’t tell me? Do you know how that makes me feel? Do you realize how serious this is? If he was involved, we could lose everything, Mindy. Everything.”

“What do you mean?”

“Haven’t you been reading the papers? Whoever’s responsible for this fire is going to get prosecuted. Held liable for the costs. Do you have any idea what that would do to us?”

“I didn’t know,” Mindy said. “I didn’t realize . . .”

Peter rose and came to her side. He took her in his arms and held her to his chest.

“We have to talk to each other, Min. We’re in this together, right?”

Mindy nodded into his chest. “Of course we are.”

“No more secrets, okay? Angus didn’t do this. We’re going to prove it.”

Mindy nodded once again, but this time she stayed silent.

Because Angus was out of the house that night, of that she was almost certain.

CHAPTER 23

The Fitting Room

Elizabeth

About a year after we started trying
to get pregnant, I suggested to Ben that we get tested to find out if there was a reason it wasn’t happening.

Ben said no.

At first, I couldn’t get a straight answer about why. If there was something wrong with one of us, or both of us, maybe we could fix it. And if there wasn’t anything, it might help us to know that too. Take the pressure off. Relieve the stress building between us that was making sex a chore rather than a pleasure.

But, no, Ben said. No.

I should’ve left it there. I should’ve let him have his choice. But I couldn’t. I could never leave anything alone, a fatal flaw of mine, no surprise, but this, this I really couldn’t let be.

So I prodded and pushed and inquired and made a downright nag of myself until he finally told me what was bothering him: What if it was him?

That’s what he was worried about. I wanted this so badly, he felt, so what would happen if he was the reason we couldn’t conceive? What would be the consequence of knowing that information? Would I leave? Would I choose to find my happiness with someone else to achieve what I so obviously wanted?

And oh, how ironic that the tables were turned in this way. That I, who had once been so full of doubts, was now so single-minded about wanting a family. That scared him too.

No, no, no, I told him. No. I would never do that.
We
were the most important thing. Forever, always. I meant those words. I repeated them and repeated them, but I couldn’t change his mind. He didn’t want to know, he said. Couldn’t I just leave it be?

And then
I
began to wonder.

He was the one who worked with kids, who taught them and understood them and would make such a great dad one day—better, I feared, than the mom I’d be. And didn’t people often accuse others of what they themselves were most afraid of? What if that’s what he was
really
concerned about? That if I were the one with the problem,
he
wouldn’t stay?

These thoughts worked and worked their way through my brain until the only rational thing I could think to do was get myself tested.

I’d find out if it was me. If it wasn’t, that wouldn’t mean it was him, but at least I’d be in the clear. And if it was me, well, I’d decide what to do when I got that information.

So even though I knew it wasn’t what Ben wanted, even though I knew it might cause the very problem I was most worried about, I went for the tests.

I didn’t take them in Nelson. Medical confidentiality is only a paper concept when there are only three gynecologists in town. Instead, I waited until I was called away to a fire out of state, and on a rest day I drove six hours to a city surrounded by green rolling hills. I paid cash for my appointment so it wouldn’t show up as an insurance claim. I gave blood and urine and suffered the indignity of a vaginal ultrasound being administered by a young technician who looked at me as if I was contemplating something wrong, and persuaded the doctor to give me the results over the phone since I wouldn’t be able to come back to get them in person.

And amazingly, after the tests were done, I kind of forgot about it. It was out of my hands now, like letting go of a helium balloon. My worry rose gently and then disappeared from view.

Six weeks later, an e-mail from Dr. Korn popped into my inbox. I took my phone with me into the bathroom like I was receiving texts from a lover. As I called the number provided, my hands were shaking.

The receptionist put me through to the doctor as I braced myself against the tub. He was sorry, but the news wasn’t good. I had “scarring on my fallopian tubes,” likely the result of an undetected case of chlamydia, which was all too common these days, he hastened to assure me, and “nothing to be ashamed of.” But my chances of conceiving naturally were “extremely low.” Surgery might correct the problem, but it might not. There was always IVF.

For a moment, my mind focused on my ex-boyfriend, Jason. He was the one who’d given me the STD that had caused this, discovered months after we’d broken up during a routine checkup. Had my doctor said something then about the potential consequences? Had I blocked it out because who really hears that kind of information when you’re twenty-one?

What was I supposed to do now? Tell Ben? Not tell Ben? He didn’t want to know this. He’d told me so over and over, and I’d ignored him. But if I didn’t tell, if I kept it to myself, then I’d be living with this enormous secret, going through the motions of trying to get pregnant when I knew it would be wasted effort. Ben knew me too well. He’d know something was wrong. And that would fester between us.

Round and round and round I went until I felt that familiar wave in my stomach, and I found myself hovering over the toilet reliving that day’s lunch. Ben found me like that—who knows how long I’d been there—and he rubbed my back and got me a wet cloth and asked if there was anything else he could do.

And then he said something about maybe there was a reason I was sick. He looked so shy and nervous and waiting to be happy as he said this, that I knew what I had to do.

I had to keep this to myself.

And that’s what I did.

When the interviews are done, I find Ben waiting for me in the hall. The last bell has rung, and the building’s emptied out like there was a fire drill, which maybe there will be if the latest fire report has anything to say about it.

Is it ironic that investigating the fire that might burn down my house in 1.7 days has made me forget there’s a fire that might burn down my house in 1.7 days?

I’ll have to ask Ben.

“They want to put some equipment around the house,” he says, waving his phone at me.

I take it. It’s an e-mail to the ten families that live in our cul-de-sac. They’ll be bringing in equipment overnight, and tomorrow they’ll start felling trees and laying hoses. Kara’s last stand against the fire if it makes it over the ridge.

I hand the phone back to Ben.

“This is bad,” he says, “right?”

“It’s bad.”

“You get anything useful in there?”

“I can’t . . .”

“You can’t talk about it, I know.”

“That’s not what I was going to say. I just need to process everything. I feel like the answer’s staring at me in the face, but I can’t see it.”

“Like me. I’m staring at you in the face.”

I smile. “You are. Does that mean you set the fire?”

“Nuh-uh. You’re my alibi, remember?”

We grin and then drop our grins quickly as we remember why we’re each other’s alibis—because we were discussing the end of our marriage when the fire was set.

“Don’t you have that dress fitting with my mother?” Ben says.

“Oh, God. I forgot all about that. What time is it? Shit. Is it too late to cancel?”

Ben frowns. Cancelling on his mother is not acceptable. I should know. I’ve done it too many times before.

“No, right, of course not.” I check the time on my phone. “I should be able to make it. It was at 4:30, right? She said 4:30?” I sound hysterical, even to myself. “Sorry. I’m not sure what’s gotten into me. You still haven’t told your mother anything?”

“You asked me not to.”

“Okay, thank you. I should run.”

I lean forward and give him a peck on the cheek. Two students walk by, and one of them gives a low whistle.

“All right, Mr. Jansen!”

It’s so good to see that high school hasn’t changed one iota.

I arrive at the dress shop ten minutes late, despite driving faster than I should through the backstreet shortcut Ben showed me years ago. Grace is waiting for me on a velvet-covered settee, immaculately turned out in perfectly pressed slacks and a Chanel jacket she has in what seems like every shade. We hug briefly, and I catch her scent—Shalimar and expensive soap. Hugging her is like coming out of a spa treatment. But today even she is tinged with a bit of smoke. It’s taken up residence in every nook and cranny in town, and when I look out the window at the Peak, the plume rising up behind it seems darker, ominous, alive.

Caroline’s Dress Shop is a quirky place, an odd mix of designer clothes for the discerning set, and tight jeans and spangly T-shirts for their daughters. Caroline’s a former ski bum who married a biker bum she met a few years after she moved here. She opened the shop like so many do in this town when they realize they need a permanent source of income. It’s not her life’s dream, but living in this town is, so she makes the best of it. Until she opened this place, women had to travel to the next state to buy a decent dress.

The dresses Grace has picked out for us this year are Vera Wang. Not wedding dresses, of course, but from her regular collection, more affordable but still an expense I protested when Grace first showed me what she wanted us to wear. She likes our dresses to complement each other, and so she often insists we order from the same collection. Grace waved my worry away with the ease of someone who doesn’t have to think about money, saying the dresses would be on them.

“How are things, dear?” she asks. “You’re looking a bit tired.”

I haven’t seen her since early Tuesday morning—what already feels like a lifetime ago. Is it really only Thursday?

“Ben told you I’ve been working on trying to solve what started the fire?”

“Yes, he mentioned something about that.”

Grace and Gordon have never approved of what I used to spend my time doing. I think they both admired it, but they didn’t understand it, especially Grace. How I could work a job that took me away from my husband for such long stretches? Grace was particularly happy when I quit and came home, though I couldn’t tell her, or Ben, the real reason. Hours of Internet research had convinced me there was still a possibility I could get pregnant naturally, but each month I was away from Ben diminished it. I owed it to him to give us our best chance since I was the reason we needed it in the first place.

Mindy was the only one I told. She’d repaid my confidence by throwing it back in my face during out fight. And when Grace and Gordon find out about the divorce, I’m sure it will be a sad confirmation of what they always suspected: that I wasn’t as committed to Ben as I ought to have been.

Caroline comes out from the back. She’s tall and blonde and athletic in a way that so many in this town are. She’s wearing similar clothes to me—skinny jeans and a cashmere sweater Grace gave me for Christmas—but with an elegance I can never pull off.

“You ladies ready?”

“Lead us through,” Grace says.

She takes us into the fitting area. Caroline was smart enough to have two installed, one for the “older ladies,” a group I realize with a sinking heart that I now firmly belong to, and one for the teenage set. “Our” fitting room is dressed like a funky, expensive boutique in Greenwich Village. There’s even champagne available if you need to drink while you shop.

Our complementary ivory-cream ball gowns are hanging outside of two of the fitting rooms. The other two cubicles’ curtains are closed, but rustling, occupied.

“Busy time of year,” Caroline says. “With the Fling coming up.”

“Quite,” Grace says.

We go into our respective rooms. The woman next to me starts talking to her friend in the next cubicle over. I listen casually as I strip off my clothes, avoiding looking at myself in the mirror. Years of fighting fires has left its scars, and it isn’t something I feel like being reminded of today.

“I can’t believe people are being such B-I-T-C-Hs about all of this,” says a voice I recognize but can’t immediately place. “I mean, it’s charity. Hello!”

“I’m not surprised at all,” says another, stronger voice which this time I know. Kate Bourne, Queen Bee of the crowd Mindy runs around in now. “Ugh, I hate white dresses.”

“But you picked the theme,” says her friend, who must be that one with the weird name. Bitty, Boopsy? I can never remember.

“What does that have to with anything?” Kate says.

I pull my own dress from its wrapper. It unzips in the back, and I step into it, noticing the pattern my socks have left around my ankles.

“They’ve been harassing poor Mindy. And then,” Kate lowers her voice, “you know they questioned Angus at school today.
The police
.”

I reach behind me to try to zip up the dress, but I’m having trouble. I can’t quite get a proper grip on the zipper. It seems stuck in the wispy fabric.

“Angus is such a nice boy. That Tucker, though . . .”

“I’ve told Honor more than once that he’s a little devil. Why, he’s been trying to lead my Chris astray for years, but he stands up to him.”